I sat on the bed for a while after Rex left, reeling from everything that had happened. Fear still gripped my gut, fear of what was to happen to me as well as fear of what would happen to my surviving crewmates—if they survived at all. Greater than the fear, though, was the powerful curiosity and awe I was feeling. Rex, this strange alien creature, was fascinating and intoxicating to me in a way I’d never experienced before. I wanted more of him. I wanted to be around him, to learn about this weird world from him. To learn about who he was.

Finally, however, my curiosity got the better of me, and I stood. I crept slowly to the door, unsure if the other A’li-uud in the house were prepared to slaughter me the moment I stepped out. I heard sounds from the first floor which sounded like normal household activities, but I still didn’t feel entirely safe to just wander. Nevertheless, I opened the door cautiously and peeked out.

Nobody was around. My gaze fell on the same strange staircase Rex had taken me up to get to this room. It seemed to be made of dirt, but it was solid and appeared to be crafted like any normal wooden or metal staircase. I tiptoed to the top step and began making my way down bit by bit.

When I made it to the bottom, I saw the two adult A’li-uud immediately. The female was hovering over a cooking pot, and the male was pacing around the space with his hands behind his back. Upon seeing me, both straightened up and seemed to freeze. I froze, too. I didn’t know what Rex had told them before he’d left, and I didn’t know if these aliens were trustworthy. Neither moved toward me, though. They both just remained rooted to their places with their eyes on me, though the female’s eyes darted across the room intermittently at the two little children.

“Hello,” I said uncertainly. My voice sounded loud and out of place in the room, and I almost wished I hadn’t spoken.

I received no reply. I considered racing back upstairs and holing up in the bedroom until Rex returned, but I couldn’t help myself.

“I’m Tabitha,” I continued, my words trembling slightly with nerves. “Rex said I could stay here while he was gone.”

“We know,” the male said.

I was taken aback by his voice. It was deep and low, and, while he spoke in English with the same staccato mannerism Rex had, there was something almost foreign about the words. It was as if I could hear the clacking of his native tongue inside each syllable.

I understood him, though, and I nodded. “May I walk around?”

The female was looking at me with wide eyes now, clearly fearful, but the male seemed to be slightly more comfortable now that we were conversing.

“Rex says you are not a threat,” he said. It wasn’t exactly an answer to my question, so I responded to him.

“I’m not,” I said. “I don’t even know what you are or where I am.”

“We are A’li-uud,” the male replied, straightening up even further, puffing out his chest a bit.

It was a little difficult for me not to get snappish. Rex had just said he was A’li-uud, too, when I had asked about what he was. I wanted to say that knowing the name of something didn’t explain what it was, but I was too far out of my element to do anything except nod again.

“Stay on the property,” the male commanded. He sounded very similar to Rex in his dominant command. “You are not safe if you leave.”

“I will,” I promised. The two adults across the room remained frozen in their spots, just watching me, so I decided to move first.

Walking outside, I was able to breathe a little bit easier. It was unnerving to have two sets of eyes boring into me and assessing every little move I made. There was freedom in closing the door between them and myself, and the vast expanse of plains around me only helped to lift that feeling of freedom. I stood on the front path and just looked for a moment.

The landscape was the same as it had been at the site of the crash, but, without the terror pulsating through me, it was even more breathtaking. The fluffy beige grass bent in synchronized dance with the whim of the breeze, making the ground seem to ripple like ocean waves, going on as far as the eye could see. A band of lilac-colored sky wrapped around the land where the horizon met the grasses, and, where there had been turquoise and lavender in the heavens, there was now a blanket of cobalt and swirls of varying eggplant hues. The stars were so bright in the fading light, I couldn’t help but think of them as pieces of the weird white sun. The dusk brought with it blindness, but I could still make out the dark arms of the lifelike trees piercing the otherwise flawless skyline. It was beauty in its purest form.

I turned to look at the house behind me. I’d seen it when Rex had first brought me to it, of course, but I’d been so frightened he was going to kill me, I hadn’t been able to appreciate it. It was rounded in shape but with sharp angles and straight lines at unpredicted places. I extended a hand and pressed my palm to the wall. It felt like clay or mud, dried from the sun, but firmer and hardier. There was no flaking, chipping, or dust from the structure, as I would have expected. The house also had windows made of some kind of extraordinary, nearly invisible glass, and the door was of a wood I wouldn’t have been able to name.

Without really thinking, I walked a few steps down the path and propped myself onto the top rail of a fence which was made of similar wood to the door. The fence didn’t seem to serve a purpose, as it had no gate to close and only stretched about ten yards, but it was a fitting place for me to have a seat and just relax for the first time since nearly plummeting to my death.

I was so lost in my thoughts about what would happen to me and what had or would happen to my crewmates that I didn’t notice the sky continuing to darken until a noise made me jump. I swung my head in the direction of the source, but I could see nothing, and my heart leaped into my throat with fear. Before I could decide whether to run into the house or wait to see what the sound was, Rex suddenly appeared by my side.

“Oh my God,” I said wheezily, putting a hand on my chest to steady my galloping heart. “Where did you come from?”

“We can move much faster than humans,” Rex said calmly. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just thinking,” I replied.

Through the darkness, I could make out his eyes staring at me intently. “Are you frightened?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “I didn’t know it was you out there until you just popped up next to me.”

“No. Are you frightened of your fate?”

The question caught me off-guard, and I had to think for a moment. I knew the answer. I was definitely afraid of my fate, but I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know that.

“Yes,” I finally answered honestly. “I don’t know what you want with me. And I don’t know what you’ll do when you get whatever it is you want.”

He continued to stare at me, and I desperately hoped he would reassure me somehow. I wanted him to tell me he wasn’t going to kill me, that I would be okay, and he would help me get back to Earth.

He didn’t, though. Silence spread between us for several long beats, and then he said, “Come inside. My mother has made dinner. That is what you call night-meal, yes?”

“Yes,” I murmured. Then, tentatively, I asked, “Those people in there are your parents?”

“They are not people. They are A’li-uud,” he said sternly. “And, yes, they are my parents.”

He extended a hand to me, and I took it. He guided me gently off the fencepost to my feet and led me back inside the house. It was strange to me to enter this way since the first and only time I had walked into this house had been under the threat of death.

Both his mother and father looked up when we walked in, and their eyes landed on me immediately with the same kind of wariness they had had before. Rex clacked something to them before showing me to the table. It was made of wood, but a different kind of wood than the fence and the door. It seemed almost rubber-like in texture. I sat on the bench, which was also made of the rubber-wood, and waited in complete stillness for whatever was happening next.

Rex’s mother was bustling around the cooking pot, and she handed him a misshapen bowl of something, which he then brought to me with a spoon. I looked at the dinnerware as he placed it in front of me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Hicorn stew,” he said.

I had been asking about the bowl and the spoon, as they were both cream-colored and had numerous imperfections, but this information distracted me from the original purpose of my inquiry. “What is hicorn?”

“A wild plains goat. They are a staple in our tribe’s diet.” He motioned to the bowl. “You eat from a hollowed hicorn horn, and you eat with a hicorn rib.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was horrified at the thought of eating off of bones. To refuse seemed like treason, however, so I carefully picked up the spoon, dipped it into the stew, and lifted it to my mouth.

It was odd but strikingly delicious. The meat was tender and gamey in flavor, and the broth had a hearty, earthen taste to it. There were bits of other things in the stew as well, what I presumed to be A’li-uud vegetables, and they added every kind of flavor imaginable: seductive sweetness, tangy tartness, pungent bitterness, savory saltiness. If I were to dream up the most perfect, satisfying dish in the universe, this would have been it.

I ladled another spoonful into my mouth, and Rex watched me eat it before he walked back to the cooking pot. He returned to the table with two more bowls, which he set down opposite me. He made another trip, and, when he placed a bowl beside me, he sat down before it. I could feel his elbow brush against mine as he began to eat, and the touch made me shiver. His parents sat down on the other side of the table, his father across from me, and they kept their eyes averted as they dined.

Rex exchanged brief conversation with them throughout the short meal in his clacking language, but his mother seemed unwilling to speak, and his father was looking at him with sternness on his face. I tried to eat as quickly as I could so that I could escape back to the bedroom and let them talk properly. Of course, I was also extraordinarily hungry. Just as I finished my food, however, Rex stood and extended a hand to me.

“Let us retire,” he said. He clacked something to his parents, and they both nodded.

I took his hand, and he guided me back up the stairs to the same bedroom he had brought me before. Once inside, he closed the door and turned to me.

“You are to sleep here,” he said. “Undress.”

“W-What?” I stammered.

He stepped toward me, closing the gap between us, and moved a hand to my waist. I realized he was sliding my top up my torso, and I leaped back. He looked at me with surprise.

“What is wrong?” He asked. He sounded genuinely confused.

“You can’t just undress me!” I cried, tugging my shirt back down.

His head tilted to the side, and he stepped up to me again. “You are to sleep now.”

“Yes, but—” My voice died off as his hand skimmed the hem of my shirt again, his knuckles brushing along my waistline.

“You cannot sleep in these clothes. They are dirty and torn. We will get you new clothes tomorrow.”

I nodded, and, this time, I didn’t stop him as he slid the shirt up and over my head. His hands dropped back to my waist, and he eased my pants down the length of my legs. I stepped out of them gingerly, my heart beating faster than it had when he’d surprised me outside. My stomach was fluttering wildly, and my mouth was uncomfortably dry. Once I was reduced to my bra and panties, he looked me up and down. His eyes were narrow and hooded, and I imagined I had the same expression on my face as I looked back at him.

“Do you wish to remove those as well?” He asked, motioning to my undergarments.

For a moment, I imagined him unhooking my bra and sliding it from my breasts with the same gentleness he’d used to remove my other articles of clothing. I imagined the feeling of his strange skin against mine as he slipped my panties down my thighs, his mouth level with my most intimate place as he did. Then, I shook myself from the thoughts and responded.

“No. This is fine,” I said softly.

He nodded once and motioned to the bed. I climbed onto it and lifted back the blankets. They weren’t sheets and quilts as I was used to; they seemed to be made up of animal skins which had been beaten into buttery softness and furs exquisite to feel against my bare skin. I shimmied beneath them and pulled them up to my chin, rather self-conscious about being so naked in front of him.

“Where will you sleep?” I asked.

His eyes moved to the empty space in the bed beside me. Very seriously, he said, “There.”

Again, my stomach fluttered, and I mummified myself even more with the blankets. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to touch me. It was the exact opposite, and that made me nervous. I wasn’t a promiscuous woman by any means, but something about this man—this alien—was making me quiver.

“Well, are you coming to bed, then?” I asked timidly.

He leaned against the wall across from the bed and crossed his arms over his unclothed chest. I couldn’t help but admire the way his muscles seemed to stand out, even through the darkness.

“When you sleep, I will sleep,” he said.

I wanted to ask him more questions, to get some of the answers I so desperately needed to know, but I was more tired than I thought. Between the crash, the new planet, Rex, and my rollercoaster of emotions, the day was more than I could take. I hadn’t even opened my mouth to ask my first question before I fell into a deep sleep.